Private Property

USA, Nepal, France, Australia | 2026 | Fiction, Drama | 17 min | English, Nepali

Director: Deepak Rauniyar

Screenwriter: Deepak Rauniyar, Asha Magrati

Executive Producer: David Barker, Shruti Ganguly

Producer: Asha Magrati, Kiersten Houser, Kim Carr, Sheldon Chau

Cinematographer: Sheldon Chau

Editor: J. Him Lee

Sound: Cecilia Keirstead , Uttam Neupane

Music: Vivek Maddala

Starring: Asha Magrati, Nick Sencey, Hem Thapa, Joe McAlear, Tylar McCarty, Nicole McCarty

Synopsis

At a gas station on the edge of an American city, Maya, a Nepali immigrant working the overnight shift, is learning the words she needs to survive: private property, trespassed, I'm calling the police. Her coworker Dev, who trusts the local sheriff' sdeputies, teaches her the language of belonging built on lines and warnings. Danny, an unhoused Black veteran who has slept outside the station for years, keeps crossing those lines — for coffee, for warmth, for a place to be. As the nights grow colder and the confrontations sharpen, Maya reaches first for the law, then for agun, searching for a safety that keeps slipping further from her. Private Property follows one immigrant's education in American fear and learning the cost of belonging.

Festival&Award

Locarno Film Festival 2026

Director's Note

The film is loosely inspired by the life of Arjun Dev Bhujuwa and my own experience living in the United States, set in a single gas station over winter nights, and Maya learns America the way many of my fellow Nepalis did — one phrase, one screen at a time. Like many of us, she grew up on Hollywood and Bollywood films that demonized dark-skinned people; now the news above the counter adds to that picture. She learns what surviving in America seems to demand: you have to take care of yourself. With the camera, we mimicked the surveillance monitors: frames that watch and do not move. The color, sound, and music romanticize the American dream as Maya imagines it. We didn't want to guide the audience on how to feel. The film ends on a question rather than an answer, because we do not believe the country has answered it either. For us, this is an American story — from our angle, of course.

Deepak Rauniyar

Named one of “9 New Directors You Need to Watch” by The New York Times, Deepak Rauniyar is a U.S.-based Nepali writer-director whose films have premiered at Venice, Berlin, Toronto, Locarno, Busan, and Sydney. Private Property marks his return to Locarno's Concorso Corti d’Autore, competing for the Pardino d’Oro and a Pardo for Change nomination. His debut, Highway (Berlinale, 2012), was the first Nepali film selected by a major festival and also enjoyed a week-long run at MoMA. His second feature, White Sun (2016), won the Interfilm Award at Venice and was Nepal’s submission for the Academy Award for Best International Feature. His latest, Pooja, Sir (2024), premiered at Venice, where Screen Daily placed it “in the tradition of great detective films.” His work is produced in partnership with Louverture Films, founded by Danny Glover and Joslyn Barnes. He teaches film at Boston University and has served on juries at Locarno and Sydney.